


The Path Ahead

by Christmasrose66



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:34:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22069369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Christmasrose66/pseuds/Christmasrose66
Summary: Set shortly after the end of Season 11, begins with Skinner waking up in hospital
Relationships: Fox Mulder & Dana Scully
Kudos: 14





	1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1 : In the know

A bright light, and heat, his eyes stung, and he was awake. Suddenly awake. Where was he? Lying in bed, but not in his bed, in an undecorated room with a bank of medical equipment beside him. In a hospital then. He tried to remember what had led up to this point. Darkness, the feeling of falling, a car coming towards him, a flash of light, pain, then nothing. Somebody had tried to kill him, who and why? He felt a sense of urgency, there was something he needed to do. He had to protect Mulder and Scully. He pushed the bed sheet away from himself, and urged his body forward. A jolt of agony shot through his torso, like lightning. He looked down at the mess his body had become. There were metal rods attached to both of his legs, and pins protruding from the flesh. Blood congealed around the pins, he felt and looked like Frankenstein's monster.   
Another image floated in front of his eyes, that of himself holding a gun and pointing it at the occupants of the car heading towards him. No, it couldn't be true, could it? He'd shot Monica? Surely this was some drug-induced hallucination, a fever-dream created to try to make sense of his current predicament. He tried again to move his legs, and again the pain shot through him. That was a good sign, he supposed, at least he could still feel his legs. But he wasn't getting out of this bed any time soon, unless he could persuade someone to help him into a wheelchair. He couldn't just lie here indefinately, where the hell was everybody?  
There was some commotion in the corridor outside his room. Raised voices, "I'm a medical doctor", he couldn't help smiling when he heard that. That was Scully, he'd know her voice anywhere. There was a light tap on the door, and it was pushed open a crack. "Walter? Scully inquired gently. When had she started calling him Walter? His brain felt fuzzy around the edges. And right behind Scully, there was Mulder. Protectively close, his hand gently grazing the small of her back. Did they think he hadn't noticed? That he'd never noticed? Right from the start, 25 years ago, Mulder had hovered around her, like a moth attracted to a flame, as if he couldn't function when he was too far away from her light. Any excuse to get close to her, to "accidently" touch her. And it wasn't as if she were much less obvious. She barely bothered to feign displeasure at his antics. Skinner knew that there was no way Scully would have put up with this type of physical contact from any other male agent, she'd have them hauled up for harassment so fast their feet wouldn't touch the ground, and rightly so.   
He watched them approach his bed, their movements like a choreographed ballet,but there was something else, something was different. Mulder seemed especially solicitious, gesturing towards the small, plastic chair at Skinner's bedside. Scully gave a brief smile, and sat down without comment. A conversation without words. "How are you feeling?" Scully asked Skinner. ""Like crap" he answered honestly, and without hesitation. She studied the readouts displayed on the machinery he was connected to. "After such major surgery, it's not suprising" she nodded. "Will I walk again?" he asked, straight to the point, he didn't want any sugercoating. Scully's expression was unreadable, she paused, "I'd say the chances are good, but you are going to need a lot of physio". All three of them smiled, this was positive news, a situation that could be tackled sucessfully. "We'll do what ever we can to help" Mulder said, his hands now on Scully's shoulders, as he stood behind her. There was definately something going on, Skinner figured, something he didn't know, but then there often was. He'd read enough X-File case reports to realise that most of them had only a tenuous relationship with reality. Whether his agents kept him in the dark intentionally in order to protect him, themselves or those they investigated, he wasn't sure. Over the years, they had built up a level of trust, and he had come to regard them as something like his children. He had no children of his own, no family to speak of, and somehow Mulder and Scully had become his responsibility, not just in a professional sense, but in a personal one.   
"Do you remember what happened?" Scully asked, and for a moment Skinner was disorientated, what happened when? he thought.Then he realised she meant the accident, his injuries. "I'm not entirely sure, " he replied "I guess I was hit by a car". They nodded at him. There was a pause, all of them wanted to say more, but weren't quite sure where to start. Skinner wanted to ask whether he had really shot Monica, and Scully wanted to reassure him that Monica was still alive. Mulder, grinning slightly to himself, was bursting to tell Skinner that Scully was expecting a baby, but also aware that this probably wasn't the time or the place. He bounced up and down on the balls of his feet. Distracted, Scully put her hand onto her stomach, and suddenly Skinner realised what was going on. "Oh!" he exclaimed softly. "Sir?" Mulder asked, he couldn't bring himself to adopt Scully's new-found easy familiarity with Skinner. Skinner grinned broadly, "What's going on with the two of you?" his tone was light and playful. Scully grinned back, realising that she'd given herself away. She glanced up at Mulder, he squeezed her shoulder, gazing down at her, with a look of complete contentment. Scully looked back to Skinner. "I'm expecting a baby" she said simply. "Congratulations". Again/still there were unanswered questions, what had happened to CGB Spender? and had they found William? What did the future hold for all of them? They never did what was normal, never took the straight path if there was a winding back road to follow. This was a new road they were taking, each of them walking forward. For Walter Skinner, literally learning to walk all over again, and for Dana Scully and Fox Mulder, the chance to be parents again, to guide their child along her own path, wherever it might take her.


	2. Weather with you

She loved the summers in Virginia. The days were long and warm, the heat building throughout the day, until just at the point when she thought she couldn't bear the stifling weight of the rising temperature, a thunder storm would break. Lightning would flash across the sky, and big, sloppy drops of rain would pound the earth, bringing a delicious coolness and soothing fresh air. Almost every day, the cycle would repeat itself, washing the earth clean again. She loved to sit on the porch and watch the rain fall. To rock backwards and forwards gently on the swingseat. Often she was alone at first, as Mulder sat indoors, chasing down conspiracy theories in obscure corners of the world wide web. Sometimes he would poke his head around the screen door, calling out "Scully, you have to see this ..." or "Did you know? ..." and as soon as she caught his eye, he was off on some flight of fancy, there was no stopping him, until he needed to draw breath. As the days passed, the two of them settled into the routine of their joint existence, and it began to feel comfortable, and increasingly "normal". Scully was content, (almost inspite of herself). She distrusted "normality" after the events that Mulder and she had lived through, but slowly, imperceptively, the walls that she had constructed to protect herself, were coming down. Sometimes, Mulder would bring out a couple of sodas, and wiggle his eyebrows at her, "Is there room on that seat for me?" he'd ask shyly, and she'd shuffle up to let him join her, with a smile that warmed his heart. Throughout the warm summer months, Scully's pregancy progressed. She grew rounder and heavier, and the swing seat creaked a little, in protest, when the two of them sat together. Perhaps the creaking was only a figment of Scully's imagination. Realistically, that swing had withstood generations of the house's previous tenants, and it would go on to accomodate future generations of her own family. The bigger she grew, the more oppressive the heat seemed to be, and the more she longed for the storms to break over the Virginia sky.   
Then the seasons changed, and their little family grew. In the winter, as the snow fell, Scully wrapped her daughter in several layers of clothing, and took her out to rock backwards and forwards on the swing seat. The cold air whipped their faces, and Scully held her child close and sang softly, "Jeremiah was a bull frog, was a good friend of mine ..." A deeper voice continued the melody "I never understood a single word he said", and then they sang together "but I helped him drink his wine".


End file.
